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Midway Wants to Keep Mortal Kombat, Actually

If possible, the struggling publisher would love to hold on to its cash-cow franchise.

Midway told MTV Multiplayer today that, if at all possible, it would actually rather not pawn the Mortal Kombat franchise off on another publisher.

The prospect of Midway selling MK off arose after the company's recent Chapter 11 filing, which mentioned the sale of the franchise as a possible goal in the proceedings. But according to Midway's Geoff Mogliner, the stress is on "possible." "It's not our goal to sell Mortal Kombat," Mogilner told Multiplayer. "It is something that, in the world of scenarios, it is something that could happen here. But it's not something that we as a company are going for."

Mogliner went on to cite lots of publisher interest in the franchise, and admitted to Multiplayer that there have been talks. But he also stated that the MK team is currently at work producing another game.

Miguel says:
Fighting games, like comic books (which in many ways are very much their cultural blueprint) thrive in the crossover space. And this is odd, because no matter how they're spun, crossovers always amount to a marketing stunt. Putting Batman and Galactus on the cover of something can be safely identified as an attempt to move said something like crazy. The same goes for Ryu and Cyclops. That this appeals to us in spite of this could probably be attributed to our stunted imaginations still being stirred by questions like "Could Chun-li beat up Iron Fist? Could twelve Resident Evil dogs kill Swamp Thing?"

MTV Multiplayer asked its readers via a poll which company they'd want to see acquire the rights to Mortal Kombat. They chose Capcom. Which is boring, mainly because the bout between Ken and Reptile has already been playing itself out in my mind for more than a decade. Who would you have chosen?